University of North Carolina Athletics
Diamond Heels Ranked Among MLB Draft Top Prospects
July 12, 2024 | Baseball
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – UNC junior outfielder Vance Honeycutt looks to become the 25th overall Major League Baseball Draft first round selection in school history on Sunday.
UNC has produced 16 first-round selections from the primary June Draft, tied for fifth-most among all NCAA institutions (NCAA.com). Carolina has had nine players taken in the first round of secondary drafts and compensatory and supplemental picks.
The first two rounds of the 2024 MLB First-Year Player Draft will be on Sunday at 7 p.m. ET in Fort Worth, Texas, and will be televised on ESPN and MLB Network. Sunday's rounds will also be streamed on ESPN+ and MLB.com.
The draft continues on Monday with rounds 3-10 and concludes on Tuesday with rounds 11-20. There will be no live television coverage on the second and third days, but MLB.com will stream live coverage online.
The last Tar Heel to be taken in the first round was Aaron Sabato, who was selected 27th overall by the Minnesota Twins in 2020.
Baseball America ranks Honeycutt as the No. 13 overall draft prospect. Other Tar Heels among the Baseball America Top MLB Draft Prospects are outfielder Casey Cook (No. 164), left-handed pitcher Dalton Pence (No. 340) and outfielder Anthony Donofrio (No. 449).
MLB.com (No. 22), CBSSports.com (No. 23), Perfect Game (No. 24) and ESPN.com (No. 25) rank Honeycutt among the top 25 draft prospects.
Honeycutt was named First Team All-America in 2024 by four organizations and was named to the ABCA/Rawlings Gold Glove Team. He tied for the ACC lead in home runs with a program record 28, while also leading the league in runs (88). Honeycutt finished the season with a career-best .318 batting average with 70 RBIs while posting the third-highest single-season slugging percentage (.714) in program history.
He is the only player among the Power 5 conferences to hit over 60 home runs (65) and steal more than 70 bases (76) in his career. He hit the fourth-most home runs in ACC history and became the first to win the league's Defensive Player of the Year Award twice.
Honeycutt became the first baseball student-athlete at UNC to be named First Team All-America and First Team Academic All-America this season.
Cook was a First Team All-ACC selection and hit .343 with 18 home runs and a team-high 78 RBIs a year after hitting just three home runs and driving home 23 in only four fewer games. He finished the year with the third-most RBIs in the ACC and 11th-most nationally.
Pence posted a 5-1 record with eight saves and a 2.45 ERA, averaging 11.35 strikeouts per nine innings. He was tabbed as Second Team All-America by Baseball America, College Baseball Foundation, D1 Baseball, and Perfect Game and named Third Team All-ACC.
Donofrio batted .326 with a .435 on-base percentage, both third-highest on the team. He led the ACC in triples with six, ranked fifth in steals (19) and eighth in doubles (19). Donofrio collected 22 multi-hit games and 15 multi-RBI games.
Since the MLB Draft began in 1965, 222 Tar Heels have been selected.
UNC has produced 16 first-round selections from the primary June Draft, tied for fifth-most among all NCAA institutions (NCAA.com). Carolina has had nine players taken in the first round of secondary drafts and compensatory and supplemental picks.
The first two rounds of the 2024 MLB First-Year Player Draft will be on Sunday at 7 p.m. ET in Fort Worth, Texas, and will be televised on ESPN and MLB Network. Sunday's rounds will also be streamed on ESPN+ and MLB.com.
The draft continues on Monday with rounds 3-10 and concludes on Tuesday with rounds 11-20. There will be no live television coverage on the second and third days, but MLB.com will stream live coverage online.
The last Tar Heel to be taken in the first round was Aaron Sabato, who was selected 27th overall by the Minnesota Twins in 2020.
Baseball America ranks Honeycutt as the No. 13 overall draft prospect. Other Tar Heels among the Baseball America Top MLB Draft Prospects are outfielder Casey Cook (No. 164), left-handed pitcher Dalton Pence (No. 340) and outfielder Anthony Donofrio (No. 449).
MLB.com (No. 22), CBSSports.com (No. 23), Perfect Game (No. 24) and ESPN.com (No. 25) rank Honeycutt among the top 25 draft prospects.
Honeycutt was named First Team All-America in 2024 by four organizations and was named to the ABCA/Rawlings Gold Glove Team. He tied for the ACC lead in home runs with a program record 28, while also leading the league in runs (88). Honeycutt finished the season with a career-best .318 batting average with 70 RBIs while posting the third-highest single-season slugging percentage (.714) in program history.
He is the only player among the Power 5 conferences to hit over 60 home runs (65) and steal more than 70 bases (76) in his career. He hit the fourth-most home runs in ACC history and became the first to win the league's Defensive Player of the Year Award twice.
Honeycutt became the first baseball student-athlete at UNC to be named First Team All-America and First Team Academic All-America this season.
Cook was a First Team All-ACC selection and hit .343 with 18 home runs and a team-high 78 RBIs a year after hitting just three home runs and driving home 23 in only four fewer games. He finished the year with the third-most RBIs in the ACC and 11th-most nationally.
Pence posted a 5-1 record with eight saves and a 2.45 ERA, averaging 11.35 strikeouts per nine innings. He was tabbed as Second Team All-America by Baseball America, College Baseball Foundation, D1 Baseball, and Perfect Game and named Third Team All-ACC.
Donofrio batted .326 with a .435 on-base percentage, both third-highest on the team. He led the ACC in triples with six, ranked fifth in steals (19) and eighth in doubles (19). Donofrio collected 22 multi-hit games and 15 multi-RBI games.
Since the MLB Draft began in 1965, 222 Tar Heels have been selected.
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